The Odd Comfort of Having Donald Trump and Hunter Biden Back in the News
What happens next next….
WHAT HAPPENED: You valued having access to Wide World of News for weeks (or longer…) without becoming a paying subscriber or contributor.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: You choose to subscriber here…
Or you make a contribution by sending an email to markhalperintalk@gmail.com and asking how you can financially support my work on Wide World of News at ANY lower amount than the formal subscription rates.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT NEXT: You continue to enjoy this newsletter eight days a week, secure in the comfort that you are part of the group of readers who make WWoN possible.
HALPERIN SAYS: Thank you for all of your support and encouragement.
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WHAT HAPPENED: Crazy, all-nighter of Senate amendment voting on the pandemic relief package.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Eastern Time
9:45 AM THE PRESIDENT and THE VICE PRESIDENT meet with House Democratic leaders and the Chairs of the House committees working on the American Rescue Plan
Oval Office11:45 AM THE PRESIDENT delivers remarks on the state of the economy and the need for the American Rescue Plan; THE VICE PRESIDENT and the Secretary of the Treasury also attend
State Dining Room
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT NEXT: Democrats muscle through a reconciliation package that is bigger in some ways (more spending) and smaller in others (direct payments means tested more, minimum wage increase likely jettisoned).
HALPERIN SAYS: Just because it has been said a lot before doesn’t make it any less binary or any less true – the Biden presidency is now entirely a bet on a Democratic go-it-alone strategy to tame the virus and revive the economy.
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WHAT HAPPENED: Despite a semi-apologetic floor speech by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Democrats and eleven House Republicans voted to strip her of her committee assignments.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT NEXT: Kevin McCarthy has to move from his rally-the-troops-by-getting-them-to-focus on the prospect of winning the majority in 2022 to deciding if he wants his party to stand for truth and policy – or just whatever the Trump base wants. (See this essential reading Washington Post story…)
HALPERIN SAYS: Senate Republicans aim to get through the impeachment trial with the same kind of process arguments that McCarthy is using to finesse the MTG situation.
“What Greene said was bad, but Democrats are using a dangerous, precedent-setting process they will come to regret”
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“What Trump did was bad, but Democrats are using a dangerous, precedent-setting process they will come to regret”
Congressional Republicans are hoping to plow through their twin February gauntlets but Democrats plan to break the historical midterm peril of a president’s party by citing and yoking Trump and Greene to crush GOP suburban prospects in 2022.
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WHAT HAPPENED: House impeachment managers unexpectedly invited Donald Trump to testify at his own Senate trial and he expectedly declined in no uncertain terms.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:
House Democrats have not made public any other invitations for witnesses to testify, and Trump’s defense team has no plans to call any witnesses, several of his advisers said Thursday. Several Trump White House aides with direct knowledge of the events of Jan. 6 at the Capitol and in the West Wing said they have not been asked to testify.
The House managers have “made clear” that they want to call witnesses, said one person familiar with their thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. But they understand that it is a decision for Senate leaders, who are hashing out impeachment rules big and small, down to the size of the TV screens that will be allowed on the Senate floor to play video compilations of the mayhem that unfolded Jan. 6, the person said. (Washington Post)
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT NEXT:
Trump has joked that all of his advisers are telling him his absence from Twitter — which permanently banned him from the platform Jan. 8 — is improving his image, but that he plans to return to the political scene this spring, a person who spoke to him said….
After initially promising to launch primary challenges to all the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, people close to the former president now say they are focused on defeating Republicans in seats, such as Cheney’s, that are not at risk of a Democratic takeover in 2022. (Washington Post)
HALPERIN SAYS: One of the great and most consequential questions in the whole wide world of news is how will the media treat Donald Trump when he starts to try to make news regularly again. Has the parade moved on – or will the old muscle memory kick right back in? OTWT*.
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WHAT HAPPENED: Hunter Biden announced he has a memoir coming out in April.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: We watch the vaunted and crafty Biden Family Media Machine try to stage manage the book launch, getting Hunter maximum exposure to sell sell sell while minimizing his exposure to tough questions that could imperil his legal standing.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT NEXT: The Biden Justice Department decides whether to indict the president’s son.
HALPERIN SAYS: Maybe, just maybe, somebody will (finally) ask Hunter how he came to fly around the world on Air Force Two doing lucrative business deals without every discussing his business deals with his father.
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INCREDIBLE WWoN STATS OF THE DAY, courtesy the Wall Street Journal:
Some 94 senators belong to the party that won their state’s presidential contest in November—a record-high level of party allegiance for at least 54 years…
Now, only six states are represented by one Republican senator and one Democrat, down from nine in the last Congress and a high of 27 split delegations in 1979…
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* Only time will tell.